 | | "Emma," 2020. |
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Children of the Sun, an Art Show to Celebrate the Black Experience |
"The Brownies' Book: A Monthly Magazine for the Children of the Sun" was a short-lived but influential publication edited by W.E.B. Du Bois a century ago. Widely regarded as a pioneer in children's literature, it celebrated African-Americans with positive images, stories and poetry at a time when caricature toys were the norm. |
Over the past century, the magazine, which ran from January 1920 to December 1921, has inspired scores of artists, including Jennifer Mack-Watkins, whose upcoming solo exhibition at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center in Vermont draws from the publication's illustrative imagery. |
One image in particular was the catalyst for her show: A photograph of thousands of Black people marching down Fifth Avenue in New York in what looked like a celebratory parade. "This is beautiful, they're all dressed in white — it must be a glorious, great occasion," she recalled thinking. "Then after reading more, I realized, wow, it's not what I thought it was." |
Instead, the crowd was protesting in the names of those who had recently been killed in a race riot in St. Louis, as well as other acts of violence toward Black people across America. |
 | | Jennifer Mack-Watkins in studio.Elizabeth Brooks |
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When Ms. Mack-Watkins, who was raised in the South and is based in New York, was asked to take her art to Vermont, she knew she had to create something that would spotlight a moment in history that many might not know, she said. |
That search led her to the magazine and to a Vermont poet named Daisy Turner, who as a schoolgirl in 1891 took a defiant stand against racism. She had been instructed to recite a poem written by a white person while holding a caricatured Black doll. Instead, she improvised with her own poem. |
Inspired by both the magazine and Ms. Turner, Ms. Mack-Watkins created 11 silkscreens and two color lithographs that will be on display — both in person and virtually — from March 17 through June 13. The show, "Children of the Sun," uses doll imagery as a narrative framework to explore the exhibition's themes as well as audio recordings by Ms. Turner, including her recitation of the 1891 poem. It is intertwined with a modern-day response and poetry written specifically for the show by fayemi shakur, a writer and interdisciplinary artist. |
"The dolls I chose to depict in the work is not a representation of who we are as a people," she said, "but I'm more interested in just the act of play." |
Dolls are personal to Ms. Mack-Watkins. |
As a little girl growing up in South Carolina, her mother would tell her stories about her own childhood, when her family didn't have much money and they would make dolls out of corn husks and whatever else they could find. Ms. Mack-Watkins grew up around dolls and mannequins, which her mother, a hairstylist, used for practice. |
 | | "Carter," 2020. |
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Ms. Mack-Watkins played with many kinds of dolls growing up, though she knew which ones she could not touch, such as glass dolls or those dressed in African garb. "I couldn't play with those because they're really rare and really hard to find," she said. "It's always been a collectible because it's always been rare to find a representation of us." |
In her show, Ms. Mack-Watkins framed the silkscreen dolls in an arch, a symbolic gesture to show the "vulnerability and perseverance of Black children in America," she said. The dolls only have first names, like Harriet and Langston, and are named after Black leaders and pioneers. |
Ms. Mack-Watkins said she hoped viewers would take time to consider why the names were important and why she had chosen them. "And if they don't know the full names of the people, hopefully that'll steer them to actually look and see why I named them that," she said. |
She also said she wants her show to reach children "so they can know that Black is beautiful." |
Her own 4-year-old daughter gravitated toward the images. As she was making the sketches for the exhibition, Ms. Mack-Watkins wanted to see how they would look on a wall. Her husband made copies and her daughter hand-painted them. |
"My daughter knew that they were important so she took the time to hand paint with watercolor, every drawing that I had made. And it was special to her," she said. "So it definitely goes to the children, my own children, other people's children and adults that continue to look for representation." |
As a printmaker, Ms. Mack-Watkins, who was first introduced to a printmaking technique in high school and then studied the field at Clark Atlanta University and Spelman College, said she feels a duty to tell stories of the Black experience, and she hopes to inspire other printmakers of color to do the same. |
"Our act of making art is our act of action," Mack-Watkins said. "It's a resistance." |
 | | Photo illustration by Chloe Cushman; photo by Bleu Lou |
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To My Daughter, With Love |
Last September, an unfamiliar sight distracted Nala Pittmon, age 2, from the picture book she was reading. Her mother was crying. |
Ten Pittmon, 27, had just learned that none of the Louisville police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor had been criminally charged with killing the 26-year-old Black medical worker. First came rage, then disgust followed by exhaustion and then, finally, a release. |
But she could not afford to "break down" in front of her child, she said, so she wiped away her tears and busied herself with cleaning and cooking. |
"From that day on, I've made conscious efforts to tell her that she's loved, appreciated and protected — often," Ms. Pittmon said. |
Her efforts reflect a longstanding history of Black mothers cultivating Black girlhood, according to Crystal Lynn Webster, an assistant professor of history at the University of Texas at San Antonio who specializes in 19th-century African-American women and children's history. She pointed to the traumatizing legacies of slavery, racism and misogynoir, crediting mother-daughter bonds within the Black community with forming powerful counters against systemic oppression. |
"Black women's practices of mothering Black girls in the face of terror, objectification and loss was, and continues to be, a radical and political act," Dr. Webster said. "The relationships developed between Black girls and their mothers — whether biological or as part of kinship networks — protected and prepared Black girls for a world which attempted to erase their humanity." |
More recently, the convergence of the coronavirus pandemic — which has disproportionately affected communities of color and women of color — and Black Lives Matter protests have magnified this erasure. |
Black girls attending school online have been subjected to "virtual suspensions" and incarceration amid a disrupted school year that has aggravated digital divides and racial achievement gaps. Honestie Hodges, 14, died from Covid-19 in November, three years after police officers seeking a middle-aged woman had handcuffed the girl — then 11 years old — outside her family home in Grand Rapids, Mich. Oluwatoyin Salau, a 19-year-old Black Lives Matter activist, disappeared and was later found dead last June, shortly after reporting her sexual assault to the police and describing the event on Twitter. |
Police violence, disproportionate student discipline rates and excessive criminalization are equally experienced by Black children regardless of gender. But recent reports and initiatives like Black Girl Freedom Fund, which are founded and led by Black women, reveal that girls remain particularly overlooked and underprotected. |
Having once been Black girls themselves and understanding the challenges they face, Black mother figures are uniquely equipped to offer the insight needed to help their daughters navigate obstacles while developing a transformative love of self and community. |
"I thought about how I'd explain to my African baby girl that Black women are severely unprotected and unsupported," Ms. Pittmon said about her letter to Nala. "I also wanted to uplift her, spiritually and mentally, so that she could transmute such a dark moment in our history into personal empowerment." |
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